


you're allowed to eat (you're even allowed to enjoy it)

by jay (tofupofu)



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Ben-centric, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Drug Addiction, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Multi, Non-Graphic Smut, Poly Losers - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, also it's implied but ben gets his ass ate, except georgie rip man, it's a recovery fic!, it's what he deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-25 21:26:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21362917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofupofu/pseuds/jay
Summary: None of them areokay, if you're asking. Ben figures he's the closest. But the others find out he's been restricting his food and they know--none of them are okay. Point blank. Not even a little.Recovery fic focusing on a loosely-canon-based ("canon-based") disorders the Losers could reasonably be interpreted to have.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Ben Hanscom/Eddie Kaspbrak/Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Mike Hanlon/Ben Hanscom
Comments: 15
Kudos: 152





	you're allowed to eat (you're even allowed to enjoy it)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corvidteeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidteeth/gifts).

> It's in the tags, but it bears repeating. This is a fic about recovery from like, all the shit that the Losers have gone through. Content warning for disordered eating, mentioned alcoholism, drug use, and self-harm. I don't think any of it's like, _graphic_ graphic but it does have some real ass body dysmorphia. Also if I forgot anything please feel free to yell at me and I'll correct it.
> 
> This is for my wonderful partner glitchingscript! I love you so much and I'm so glad I got to know someone as wonderful as you.

It had taken a while for the others to find each other’s trauma. They didn’t want to talk about it, nobody  _ wants _ to talk about self-harm and drug addiction and trips to the hospital after their spouse hit them so hard they passed out. And, the thing was, they didn’t even know what  _ to _ talk about. They didn’t know until Eddie shook from withdrawal, until Bev had a panic attack after she dropped a dish as she was loading it into the dishwasher. They didn’t  _ know _ .

They didn’t know about Ben for a while. It wasn’t that he was hiding anything--he never thought he had anything to hide--and Eddie and Stan both had their own food restrictions. But he’d gained weight from their stay at the hospital, after everything, so maybe he was being a little harsher on himself. 

“What did you have for breakfast?” Bev asked one afternoon at dinner, persistently (terrifyingly) trying to get Ben to eat another portion of rice. It seemed unprompted, to him at least.

“Apple,” Ben lied, although he didn’t know why. Plenty of people skipped breakfast. Bev scowled at him.

“When was the last time you ate?” She asked, “Please, Ben, be honest with me. Be honest with us. Are you eating enough?”

“I--I’m really fine,” Ben blinked at her, dumbfounded, “I just put on a little extra at the hospital and I’m trying to get it back down.”

Suddenly, everyone looked at him with eyes full of concern. He hated it, it felt like there were thousands, even if it was just the six of them. He shrunk in on himself. He knew what they were doing, going over every line of his body, realising how he was fat again. Maybe they’d kick him out, maybe they’d tell him to get lost and never talk to him again. Thoughts swirled around in his head and he let out a horrible choked sound as Bev’s hands took his. Ben hadn’t realised how cold he was.  _ This is it _ , he thought,  _ this is the last time I’ll see them _ . Even in the best case scenario, they’d still think he was fucked up. That they couldn’t take care of themselves  _ and _ him.

“I love you,” Is what Bev said. It pulled Ben out of his spiralling. Everyone else crowded around him, pressing kisses to his hair. He cried a lot, and he was pretty sure everyone else did too. Later, he would look back and, in his hindsight, realize that it was his moment, identical to everyone else’s. It was his turn to sit in the center and be held. He needed that more than anything.

  
  
  
  


They didn’t make him eat another helping that night, but they did make him go to therapy. Recovery was… strange. It was hearing  _ you’re not ugly _ , and knowing he was supposed to somehow internalise that. All he could remember was dieting. His mother had tried everything on the planet to get him to slim down, but he’d always snuck extra food from the others. Hating himself came naturally from that. For a long time, whenever he eyes a full meal, he felt guilty. He felt guilty for eating bread, for eating meat, for eating when he was hungry instead of when he was starving.

Bev helped a lot. The others did too, but Bev knew him the best. In their bedroom, she would fuck him and tell him how beautiful he was, she would spoon him and hum softly into his chest, press kisses to his belly. Sometimes the others would join in, too, but there was nothing like Bev taking care of him, her undivided attention on his body.

“Beautiful,” Her voice would say, husky and out of breath, like that was how it was meant to be the whole time. Like his head was meant to be between her legs, like her hands were meant to clutch at his hair. “So good,” She would whisper as she took him apart. He’d come trembling and sometimes (most of the time) crying, and she’d kiss him through it, and they’d clean up and cuddle until they fell asleep.

  
  
  
  
  


Ben was so afraid of becoming fat again that when the scale started to go up, he got nauseous. When it passed two hundred and ten pounds he had a panic attack. He felt himself ballooning, in sort of a cartoonish way, into an image of his younger self. He thought of himself like that, trying to get a handle on his breathing, when Mike caught him in the hallway outside the bathroom.

“Hey, are you okay?” Mike asked, bringing Ben into a hug. Ben shook, pushing back from Mike a little.

“I feel disgusting,” Ben admitted, “I just… I just feel so gross. How can you stand to touch me?” Ben was scratching at his arms, but he didn’t realize until Mike pulled them away, painfully gentle.

“I think you’re beautiful,” Mike admitted, rubbing his thumbs over Ben’s knuckles, “I’d think you were beautiful no matter what. I thought you were beautiful when we were teenagers.”

“You--what?” Ben was taken off guard and he stared at Mike, dumbfounded.

“I love you so much,” Mike stepped closer again, and Ben let him, “That sometimes, I can’t keep my hands off you. And that will never not happen.”

Ben was the one who kissed him, strong and safe, and Mike kissed back. There was such a warmth between them. Mike kissed with a surety, hands around Ben’s back, dragging him in closer. So close Ben thought he might fall into Mike and become his shadow. He would like that. To never pay another thought to his body again.

“I know I’m fucked up,” Ben confessed, like it was something dangerous, “I want to… I’m so tired of this. I want to get better.”

“You’re going to,” Mike promised, “You’re going to get better. We all are. Just… don’t be so hard on yourself.”

And it was a promise they were all going to struggle to keep.

  
  
  
  


It was difficult to watch as they all hit low points in their recovery. Stan had meltdowns with more frequency for a while, cleaning and re-cleaning and pacing with a nervous energy even though the light was gone from his eyes. It was like he was sleepwalking when he turned got up from the bed to make sure he’d really turned the hallway lights off.

Eddie decided, one day, he was going to quit cold turkey. “No more pain killers. No more over the counter shit. None of it.” With shaking hands, he threw it all away. “I’m done.”

Richie looked so proud, proud enough to follow it up with a pack of his cigarettes. “Me too!”

They purged the house of alcohol, they started keeping books around the house. Mike got a chicken coop for the backyard. He started calling them  _ the ladies _ , much to Richie’s delight.

Ben felt like he was dragging his feet, like he was being left behind. After a while, everyone else seemed to get better. After the third day of feeling like shit, Eddie and Richie and Bev and Bill all felt better. Mike introduced melatonin into the mix a while after, and everyone was on a normal sleep schedule that was mostly nightmare free.

But Ben was still struggling. Despite what his therapist told him, he felt guilty. He felt guilty when he ate, he felt guilty when he didn’t eat. It didn’t matter how many times the others told him they loved him, he hated the way his body looked. He was still gaining weight, and he’d fucked up his metabolism and now he was going to be fat forever and—

“I can see you spiralling,” Richie sat next to him on the couch, “Like, physically. Are you… y’know, are you good?”

Ben shook his head. “I keep beating myself up and then I feel bad about beating myself up.”

Richie nodded sagely. “You know what I think you need? A good ass eating.”

“Sex isn’t the answer to everything, Richie!” Ben squawked as Richie leaned forward, making obnoxious kissing noises at him.

“You’re gonna eat his ass and you weren’t even gonna invite me?” Bev’s eyes are sparkling as she sits in her spot, a cozy armchair on the far side of the room, “Rude.”

“You know, Eddie says I eat ass like a champ,” Richie grinned, kicking his feet up and laying across Ben’s lap. “Granted, I’ve only eaten your mom’s ass before, but—”

“Shut up!” Ben laughed, pushing Richie off the couch.

“Make me,” Richie said, getting onto his knees and moving forward, looking up at Ben through his glasses. It was unfair, really.

  
  
  
  


Ben kept trying, after that. He was rewarded with praise every time he ate and it really did help to have a support system right there in the house. That isn’t to say there weren’t bad days, but bad days were so much better when Bev kissed him and Mike ran his fingers through his hair and Richie made some horrible joke. As it turned out, Ben didn’t grow ugly. When he outgrew his wardrobe, everybody understood. They took him shopping, they made a day out of it, and it was like he was alive again. 

They all were.

Stan bought an upright piano and put it in the living room. He started playing again, old church hymns and new songs, classical and gorgeous. Eddie smiled brighter, Bev grew out of her fear. 

They all cuddled with Ben more, now, too. That was probably the best development besides Ben being comfortable. He was surprised, really,  _ how _ comfortable he was. When he allowed himself to eat whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, he didn’t get hungry. He wasn’t cold any more, he had more energy. Stan and Bill would snuggle up on either side of him because they always ran cold and he was warm. He was warm again.

Ben started writing. Getting everything out on paper was so cathartic it was insane. He didn’t show anyone--he didn’t need to--but he kept the journal. He loved his journal.

The losers were happy for the second time in their lives. Not a happiness covered by a shroud, not a happiness that felt fake, not that twisted happiness that plagued them for twenty seven years. It was real happiness again. The kind at the quarry, the kind that came with movie nights and weekends together and vacations to Florida and the Bahamas and every other warm place Mike wanted to visit.

Ben didn’t mind the bad days so much any more, because they were always followed by ones filled with sunshine.

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment if you enjoyed it! or i guess if you didn't? but like, i'm sensitive so be gentle with me.


End file.
